


Aziraphale falls

by Melime



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Body Horror, Canon - Good Omens (Book & TV Combination), Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:30:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime
Summary: Aziraphale falls, and despite the pain, it's not unexpected. At least Crowley is there to catch him.





	Aziraphale falls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suzzzan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzzzan/gifts).
  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Aziraphale Cai](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323456) by [Melime GreenLeaf (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime%20GreenLeaf)

> suzzzan asked for Aziraphale falling and angst, I hope this fits the bill!
> 
> I wasn't particularly thinking of book or tv when writing, at some points I lean more towards one and others at the other, but I think it can be read as both.

When it happens, it’s not as dramatic as he assumes it will be, it’s nothing like he imagines.

The ground doesn’t open to swallow him, the skies don’t darken, the Earth doesn’t stop spinning.

Nothing at all in the world around him changes, and that seems wrong somehow. Wronger than the fact this is actually happening, that this was the final drop.

Though there is pain, it’s not like he imagines. He thinks it will be the most intense pain in Creation, and it’s much, much worse. His entire body crumbles, he falls to his knees and can’t lift his head more than a couple inches from the ground.

He wonders if this is what Crowley felt, but it can’t be. Shouldn’t be? Falling from a greater distance should hurt worse, and he’s halfway there already, far enough away from Heaven that Hell can’t pull him closer. Or at least so he hopes.

His wings spread without him meaning to, and his feathers drop one by one. It seems to last forever, and to happen all in an instant. He’s afraid to look what replaces them, and wouldn’t have the strength to lift his head even if he wanted to.

His eyes burn, then melt away. But he can still see, so he watches his fingers turn into talons then back to fingers, bones painfully setting before changing again, as if his body can’t remember what it is.

He feels the rest of his body changing as well, although he doesn’t look, can’t bear to look. His shape twists grotesquely, not quite like an animal, certainly not human, further away from ethereal. It feels as it looks and it looks monstrous.

He wonders when the pits of sulfur will come, remembers Crowley mentioning them. Crowley… will he even remember Crowley, when this is over?

Crowley never mentions Heaven, so he assumes he doesn’t remember, that demons don’t retain memories of their past. He hopes he’ll still remember Crowley even so. It would be too unfair otherwise, but then again, everything about this is unfair.

He wants to remember Crowley, even if nothing else. He would sooner forget himself, because as long as he remembers Crowley, he isn’t alone.

He tries to recall his own name, but finds that he can’t. Fragments spin around in his head, but he can’t make sense of the sounds, like someone shouting in a foreign language through a sandstorm, he hears noise he can’t make sense of.

He thinks this is it, he has nothing of Heaven left, the ground will open and toss him at the pits, and this is the end of who he was and the birth of who he’ll be forced to be.

He hears boots clicking on the floor, so loud they threaten to split his head open, but the sound is relief beyond pain, because he knows that sound.

Crowley’s hands are on his shoulders, turning him around, helping him to lay on his back, his head on Crowley’s lap.

As he turns, he can see his wings reforming, the skin underneath furiously red, but navy feathers already covering much of the extension. They would be beautiful, if not for what they represent.

Crowley gaps when he sees his eyes, and he’s not sure he’ll one day have the courage to look in the mirror, to see what is happening to him, what he is doing to himself. The remnants of his former eyes are still sticking to his cheeks, and he wonders how he must look, even to Crowley, who has seen Hell.

Crowley says something, Crowley says many things, but he can’t understand the words.

Everything is too much, the world is too bright and too loud and too broad and he doesn’t know how to make it stop, wants to beg it to stop.

But it doesn’t stop, because this is all his fault, for questioning when he knows better than to question, for doubting when he knows where doubts leads to, for siding with humanity against Heaven, for all the little things that make him less ethereal and make him more human.

Crowley kisses his forehead, then his eyelids, spreading ghosts of kisses across his face. The touch is soothing instead of burning, damnation washing away the remnants of holiness from his skin.

He remembers the burning, the pain of the profane against celestial that did nothing to stop him from touching, from kissing, from _knowing_.

He knows that Crowley felt that righteous pain just as he knows there’s no more pain now.

He wants to experience it all again for the first time.

He wants to feel that skin and that body and those lips without pain, without fear, without shame.

He wants to cry until his new eyes melt away as well so he never has to know what he looks like now, what kind of monster he becomes.

He tries to express these ideas, one by one and all at once, but he’s body is still not fully his, it still refuses to obey, it still has nothing for him but screams of pure agony, a sound he doesn’t know when started and only realizes he’s making because it keeps him from speaking.

Crowley is still talking to him, still touching him, still comforting him, but all he knows is the pain.

It hurts, it hurts so much it burns. It burns his memories, it burns his soul, it burns his whole self.

He wonders how Crowley could feel this pain and still be so kind, even if hidden away at the deepest corners of his soul. He wonders if he’ll find it in himself to be kind, when this is over.

He wonders who he’ll be when this is over.

He doesn’t wonder if Crowley will still love him, or if he’ll still love Crowley, both of them are givings. He doesn’t need to know his name to know that.

He does wonder if he’ll be able to live with himself though.

The pain leaves much as it came, sudden like a gut punch, leaving him breathless just the same.

The world settles in its new colors, washed in a peculiar blue tint, that perhaps his new eyes are responsible for. He doesn’t know what beast or animal he is now, something foul or something cruel.

He’s too afraid to look.

Crowley’s touch is comforting, always comforting, and soon his words are too, washing over him without meaning but with intent.

He would never have imagined falling would be like this. A punishment, surely. A change of state, by necessity. A torture, by definition.

But also a purge, of all shame, of all guilt, of all judgment. A glorious debauchery, a tarnish enhancing instead of dulling all that made him himself.

He looks at Crowley, knowing that for better or worse they are on the same side, and that is not the side of Hell, but their own.

And all the pain is worth the chance to choose, once and for all, choose to have a choice, choose humans, choose free will.

He can’t remember his own name, but he knows that falling can’t change who he is, because he doesn’t allow Heaven to dictate who he is, not anymore.

He hasn’t been a proper angel in a long time, all that is left is admitting it. And he has a feeling he will be just as inadequate as a demon, just as Crowley is, but he doesn’t mind that at all.


End file.
